


Like a Lady Would

by theoldgods



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Cooking, Gen, Godswood, Lemon Cakes, Pre-Canon, Sisters, Winterfell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-19 07:56:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7352554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theoldgods/pseuds/theoldgods
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now that Sansa is ten, she acts more ladylike than ever. There are some things, however, that even age and social decorum cannot fully smooth over, as Arya discovers in the course of the preparations at Winterfell for Bran's seventh name day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Lady Would

**Author's Note:**

  * For [octopus_fool](https://archiveofourown.org/users/octopus_fool/gifts).



> Written for Not Prime Time 2016 for octopus_fool, to explore some slight misunderstandings as well as "one of the somewhat rare situations in their childhood in which they got along." I hope you've had a lovely exchange!
> 
> Calculations of ages/birthdays from [A Wiki of Ice and Fire](http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Years_after_Aegon%27s_Conquest/Calculations_Ages_\(Continued3\)#Sansa_Stark) (link goes to that for Sansa) for those curious. In general, I tried to place this a little less than a year before AGOT.
> 
> Feel free to hit me up at [my tumblr](http://theoldgods.tumblr.com) for more ASOIAF/Starkling content.

She found Sansa in the kitchens, her face suffused with barely contained joy as Gage directed workers slicing lemons.

“We’ve lemons again?”

“Your lord father ordered them sent up for little lord Brandon’s name day, my lady,” Gage said as he offered Sansa an apron. She took it in hands that trembled.

“We ought to be with Septa Mordane…”

Her voice was barely audible over the commotion around them, and Arya pushed past her, grabbing at a knife.

“You hush.” When Gage moved the knife beyond her reach, Arya scowled. “Can’t we please help?”

“My lady Sansa has permission to handle knives.” Gage nodded at Sansa as she tied the apron around herself and looked at the nearest lemon. “You are barely eight.”

“Please, Gage.” Arya pushed her lip out as far as she dared, as Sansa frowned and one of the workers stifled a laugh.

“If your lady mother will allow it.”

Mother was overseeing the decoration of the Great Hall and had already shooed Arya away twice. Before Arya could argue, Sansa spoke.

“Mother lets her chop sticks with Father, so long as he watches her.”

Arya’s head jerked in her direction; Sansa pulled her knife through a lemon with a slow cut, neat as her stitches, eyes focused on the work and not her sister.

“Well then, my lady.” Gage nodded at a stool. “Bring that here, and we’ll begin.”

The process of chopping was soothing, far meatier than needlework, and even the sting of the lemon juice against old cuts and scrapes in her fingers did not dissuade Arya from the task. Gage watched each slice, occasionally correcting her grip on fruit or knife, and when they finished he replaced her knife with a mixing bowl.

Arya held it still as Sansa began adding ingredients to Gage’s satisfaction. His voice was low and crackly, and Arya lost herself in the slow but steady motion of Sansa’s hands, adding and stirring, adding and stirring, her voice dancing around his.

“Like so?”

“Exactly, my lady.” Gage smiled at her as she brushed that brilliant Tully hair—the beautiful auburn red, a singer had once called it, making eyes at Mother while Arya scowled and Sansa blushed—from her face. “You learn so quickly. And you, my lady Arya—I have not seen you so still in weeks.”

“You’ll ruin her,” Sansa murmured as Arya shifted her weight from one foot to another, but there was no venom behind the words this time. “Mother and Septa Mordane have been trying to teach her sewing, and she only behaves when you ignore her.”

“I do not!” Arya released the bowl, and Sansa took it in her own grasp, cradling it with one hand as she continued to stir with another. Gage turned away to yell at one of his workers. “If we didn’t have to sit all day—”

Sansa glanced from one end of the kitchen to the other. “Arya, we mustn’t yell in front of—”

“You’re the one who started it!”

“I only meant he shouldn’t say anything—”

“Unless I spook like a silly mare.” Arya kept staring at Sansa long after she turned away, looking down at the bowl like nothing else in the world could ever matter to her, though Arya noted the twitching of the corner of her mouth. “Silly stupid Arya Horseface—”

“No,” Sansa whispered, barely audible, and her eyes flashed enough to give Arya pause. “I only meant to—to jape.”

Sansa did not jape with anyone aside from Jeyne Poole, especially not since she reached ten years and began to sew her own long, neat dresses and pin up her hair each day and speak more softly and slowly— _like a lady_ , as Septa Mordane instructed Arya twenty times a day, _act like a lady_. And she never japed with Arya anyhow—they rolled and fought and threw snowballs after a summer storm, let Bran or Jon or Robb chase them in the pools in the godswood, but never made japes.

“You shouldn’t jest with the servants,” Arya said eventually, sniffing, attempting to inflect her voice like Septa Mordane’s. “Isn’t what a lady does.”

“Don’t mock.” Sansa’s voice was reluctant nonetheless—no smile, but it lacked the heat of any genuine reproval. “The ladies in the songs are witty. And Mother japes sometimes, with the head servants, the ones like Gage. They belong to the family, Father says.”

 _They’re just stupid songs_ , Arya wanted to say, but it wasn’t anything she hadn’t told Sansa a thousand times before, and anyhow Father _did_ joke with Hullen, though mayhaps it was different for lords than for ladies.

“Why’d you tell Gage I can cut sticks?”

Sansa’s face, already pink with the heat of the ovens and their argument, turned a deeper red. “I only told him the truth.”

“Like a lady would.” Arya kicked at the floor.

“Arya? Sansa?”

Arya grimaced as Septa Mordane appeared in the doorway; Sansa set down her spoon, eyes wary.

“You ought to be at needlework this afternoon. And my goodness, you both are filthy; you oughtn’t wear good clothes to the kitchens, Sansa!”

“I’m sorry, Septa Mordane. I thought, with the apron—”

“Forgive me, septa,” Gage called from across the room, “I only thought, seeing as how it’s a feast—”

“Thank you, Gage.” Septa Mordane put a hand on Arya’s shoulder and reached out for Sansa. “You girls come, and we will get you clean for tonight before your lady mother sees the state of you.”

* * *

Arya did not stay clean for long; half an hour into that evening’s feast, she spilled half of the cup of wine Father allowed her down the front of her dress. It was a small enough feast—only half the household or thereabouts—that of course everyone saw, and a chuckle ran up the hall as Septa Mordane took her outside.

“We’ll never get it out.” She scrubbed in despair at the spreading stain. “And your sister had just made that new for you!”

Arya pulled away. “It’s only Bran, it’s not like it’s the _king_.” She ignored the heat blossoming on her cheeks, the sting of the hall’s amusement ticking at the back of her mind. “He’s only a little older than a baby, and he won’t mind, and I’m not hungry anyhow.”

“Not hungry? Child, we’ve hardly had the first course.”

“Can’t I eat something later?”

“This is your brother’s feast.” Septa Mordane gripped her arm. “A feast is about celebration and sharing the lord’s goodness with his people. You must sit and smile and let everyone see the family happy together. You are not a baby anymore, Arya Stark. You and your sister must practice for when you are grown, and you must learn to take your ills with good grace. Your lady mother would not sulk like a child, and nor would—”

“My sister, I know.” Arya broke free at last, ignoring the septa’s muttered disapproval. “Go tell Sansa how _good_ and _graceful_ she is, and leave me alone!”

“Arya!”

But Arya was already sprinting out into the courtyard. She did not stop until she reached the godswood, eyeing an old elm tree before leaping up into it, ignoring the twinges of regret as her sleeve tore on a wayward branch.

Sansa found her there mayhaps half an hour later. Arya watched her pick her way through the godswood, skirt lifted clear of any dirt, and stop at the base of the tree, and Arya waited for the admonition.

When the silence had stretched unbroken for more than a minute, Arya shifted, stirring the leaves around her, and Sansa finally looked up, meeting her eyes.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Father is saving you a lemon cake.”

Arya frowned.

“Did _he_ send you, then?”

“Mayhaps.” Sansa brushed some speck of imperfection from her dress and then settled on a rock, folding her skirts neatly around her legs.

“He did,” Arya decided, picking at the bark on the branch beneath her until it formed the rough shape of an _A_. “Septa would send you with _words_ to say, and Mother would come herself.”

“I didn’t _want_ to come after you,” Sansa snapped. A long tendril of her hair had pulled free of her braids, framing the edge of her face. “But Rickon started wailing for Mother, so she couldn’t.”

They sat for another few minutes, the stillness eventually broken by Sansa’s humming. Arya scowled but continued carving her name with her nails into the branch. When she finished the final _a_ , she turned her attention back to Sansa, so graceful amongst the moonlight, who hadn’t moved even to fix her hair.

Eventually Arya, with nothing else to occupy her, relented.

“Is that a new song?”

Sansa’s face was astonished.

“It’s ‘Florian and Jonquil,’ stupid.”

“I can’t hear very well from up here!”

“Not that you’d know anyway.”

“No, since I’m not a lady, and nor are you.”

“I _will_ be.” Sansa sniffed. “And if you don’t want to be a lady, I guess you can just be Robb’s stupid little sister until his lady kicks you out.”

“I’m a Stark!” Arya scowled down at her. “Starks live in Winterfell.”

“Not _lady_ Starks,” Sansa reminded her. “ _Lady_ Starks go with their husbands to hold their castles.”

“I _know_ that,” Arya retorted, kicking out at a neighboring branch. “And I don’t want to have a husband or leave Winterfell.”

“Well, _I_ like Winterfell too, but we don’t have a choice.”

Arya cocked her head. “But you still want to be a lady?”

“I _have_ to be a lady; I’m a girl. And so are you.” When Arya snorted, Sansa continued, “I will have a beautiful husband, a valiant knight-lord like Father promises, and beautiful children.”

“But not in Winterfell.”

Sansa bit her lip. “No.” Her voice was more distant, and she looked up at Arya with clouded eyes. “Not in Winterfell.”

Arya sat digesting this, the strange ways that Sansa wanted to be one of her stupid ladies from the songs, even if she liked Winterfell too. Ladies didn’t _do_ anything—there could be nothing more boring, even if she were a lady like Mother, with a big castle to help run.

Eventually her stomach began to rumble. Arya slithered out of the tree, landing not far from Sansa, who ignored her as she began brushing leaves from the ruins of her braids, which were never as neat as Sansa’s to begin with.

“Being a lady is boring.”

“It is not,” Sansa replied, getting to her feet. “And it’s important anyhow.”

 _Important_ was one of Septa Mordane’s favorite words to describe how Arya had to practice her courtesies. _You shan’t find a husband unless you’re a lady, Arya. You must learn. It is very important._ Never mind that Arya didn’t want a dull lordly husband like in one of Sansa’s stupid songs, or her own castle, or her own children. She waited for Sansa to parrot back the rest, about husbands and families and honor, but all Sansa did was look up at the sliver of moon visible through the leaves overhead and sigh.

“I’m going to find Father’s lemon cake,” Arya told her. She nonetheless waited for Sansa to begin walking before setting off herself at a light jog.

“Arya!” Sansa called, but there was almost more laughter in her voice than reproach, and Arya turned around to grin at her. “You have to tell Father I found you.”

“Tell him yourself!” She turned away again.

After a moment something brushed alongside her, a burst of air, and Arya choked as Sansa caught up to her, jogging, skirt hiked up between her knees.

Sansa jostled her, lightly, and Arya laughed harder.

“You could _behave_ and _walk_!”

“So could you.”

They tumbled past one another, Sansa nearly tripping over Arya. As they came to a halt and stood together just inside the godswood, breathing hard, the walls of buildings loomed into sight.

Arya walked the rest of the way back to the Great Keep, pawing at the mess that remained of her hair, as Sansa hummed something more somber under her breath.


End file.
